DISCLAIMER: Joss owns all of them.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for the long wait.  I've been uber busy with school and original writing whatsits, and I'm still playing the balancing games with all of these fics.  If you like this one, you might also check out Small Packages… more little kids and more Faith, and to those of you Faith people who emailed and asked me to continue The Other Side, please know that because of your emails, I fully intend to do so.

And yes, I've used the Heckmouth line before in Le Bella, but I couldn't help but use it again.

Remember, we're in SEASON FOUR of Buffy in this fic… I'm playing with the timeline a little, because I want Spike to still be chained up in Giles' apartment.  Buffy and Faith did switch bodies, and Riley did have sex with Faith in Buff's body.  I think that's all you need to know.

THROWBACK: CHAPTER NINE

            By the time Wes pulled the car into the driveway, saying that the kids were a little antsy would have been a complete understatement.  In the past fifteen minutes, he'd heard eleven different verses of the Wench song, and Faith had added her creative juices and extra-loud singing voice to the mix.

            "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Faith and Liam sang/yelled together.

            Wesley put the car into park and noticed that Cordelia was singing under her breath.

            "Wench wench wench…"  she looked up at him with a defensive smile.

            "What?" she asked.  "It's kind of catchy in a twisted ewww kind of way."

            Wes said nothing.

            "Are we there yet?" Liam yelled. 

            Wes unbuckled his seatbelt.  "Yes," he said, suppressing a smile as he imagined the impending meeting, "we are."

            The door to the apartment opened, and Giles walked out of the house.  He took one look at the children, habitually cleaned his glasses, and muttered under his breath.

            "Oh dear," he said.

            Faith's sensitive hearing picked up on it.  She giggled.  "Did you hear that, Liam?" she asked, still bursting with joy at the fact that she was Wes and Cordy and Liam's girl.  "He talks funny, just like Wes.  You know what that means?"

            Liam nodded.  "Pu—" Wes shut them both up with a glare before they could get out the entire word.  Both children dissolved into giggles, and, taking them by the hands, Cordy led them toward Giles.

            Giles looked at Wesley and then at the children.  Faith could feel his eyes on her, and she sensed something about the way he looked at her.  Immediately, her guard went up.  He looked at her weird, sort of like Momma had, like she was dirty compared to everyone else.

            Cordy felt the little girl stiffen beside her and instinctively bent down and swooped her up into her arms.  Giles couldn't have been more shocked if Cordelia had shaved her head and taken up a life as a transvestite monk.  The Cordelia Chase he knew wasn't the type to cuddle a child, and the fact that the little dark haired girl who was eyeing him suspiciously was Faith was completely incomprehensible to him.

            "I'm Liam," Liam said cheerfully, "and you smell kind of funny."  Liam delivered this news with unbreaking candor, the charming smile natural on his baby face.

            Liam tugged on Cordelia's pant leg.  "Why does he smell funny?" Liam asked.

            Cordy surveyed Giles quickly and then cocked a single eyebrow.  "I think he might smell like tweed," she told the little boy.

            "Oh," Liam said.

            Faith grinned down at him.  "Ohhhhhhhhh," she whispered.

            "Not again," Wes said, though he had an incredible urge to laugh.

            "Pardon?" Giles said.

            "Ohhhhhhhhhhh…" both children sang loudly and off key.

            "This is the Wench Song," Liam sang, the lyrics, as always, changing every time.  He looked up at Giles.  "Do you know the Wench Song?" he asked, disarmingly friendly, the fact that he'd made up the song and Giles could not possibly know it escaping his attention.

            "I'm afraid I do not," Giles said, trying to reconcile the incredibly cheerful and energetic child with the Angel he knew.

            "Giles?" a voice said from inside.  "Can you make with the bringing-them-into-the-house thing now?"

            "Oh," Giles said, stammering a little, "of course."  With that, he walked back into the house, Liam, Wes, and Cordy following him, Faith still snuggled securely in Cordy's arms.

            As soon as they walked into the room, Liam fixed his eyes on a blonde girl a little smaller than Cordelia.  Without giving it a moment's thought, he walked up to her.  "I'm Liam," he announced.  "You're pretty."

            Cordelia rolled her eyes.  Some things never changed.

            Buffy grinned down at the little boy, but she still couldn't quite get her head to believe that it was Angel.

            "Can I touch your hair?" Angel asked.  "I won't pull it.  You aren't supposed to pull girl's hair, even if its pretty.  You're a very pretty wench."

            Cordelia just about choked, as a sardonic look entered Buffy's eyes.

            "A wench?" she asked skeptically.

            "Cut out the wench-age, Liam," Cordy said casually.  Liam nodded.

            "Do you have nail polish?" he asked.  "I like nail polish.  And glaives.  And Care Bears.  Wes likes Care Bears, too.  He watches them with me, but Faith won't.  She likes Xena better, only Wes and Cordy won't let her watch it anymore after what happened with the…"

            At a look from Wes, Liam stopped talking mid-sentence and just smiled broadly.

            Buffy felt her heart melt at the little boy's round cheeks, large eyes, and almost unreal cheerfulness.  This was what Angel had been like as a child?

            "Where are we?" Liam asked, not waiting a beat before he changed the subject.

            "Sunnydale," Giles replied, a text book tone coming into his voice as he forgot for a moment that he was talking to a little boy.  "La boca del infierno.  The mouth of-"  Giles stopped speaking as Cordelia shook her head slightly.  "Er, the mouth of Heck," Giles said, amending what he had intended to say.

            "The Heckmouth," Liam inferred. 

In Cordy's arms, Faith stared at Buffy.  Buffy had such pretty blonde hair, and Liam liked her already.  Faith could tell.  Maybe he'd like her better than he liked Faith.  Faith shifted in Cordy's arms, the thought disturbing her more than she would have admitted.

            Her momma had always told Faith that she had known Faith was bad the day she was born, because she'd had her daddy's dark hair and not Momma's blonde hair, and her daddy had been a bastard and other things Faith wasn't supposed to say out loud.  Her scalp tingled a little in the memory of Momma trying to rip out the dark hair.

            Faith had cut it once, hoping it would grow back blonde so that Momma would like her.  It hadn't.

            Faith squirmed to get down when Liam mentioned nail polish again.

            "Heckmouth," she whispered, coming to stand beside her.

            "HECKMOUTH!" he bellowed amicably, and Faith grinned, slipping her hand through his.

            Without meaning to, Buffy narrowed her eyes at the child, because little girl or not, she was still Faith, and Faith wasn't to be trusted, especially not where Angel was concerned.

            Faith forced herself not to shrink back from the older woman's glare, even though it hurt real bad on the inside.

            "Hellmouth," Faith said darkly, her eyes locked on Buffy's, never flinching away from the blonde woman's glare.

            "Faith," Wes said warningly.

            "HELLMOUTH!" Liam bellowed.

            Buffy laughed and rolled her eyes heavenward.  The fact that Angel had been turned into a child wasn't in itself funny.  L.A. needed its champion, but still… 

            "I want my sodding blood!" a voice yelled from the bathroom.

            Immediately, both children were intrigued, and in the way of little kids, they started gravitating toward the bathroom. 

            "I WANT MY SODDING BLOOD!" they both echoed cheerfully.

            Faith grinned at Liam.  "Do you want your sodding blood?" she asked.  Liam, catching onto the game, nodded, his eyes wide.

            "Do you want your sodding blood?" he asked Faith seriously..

            "Yup.  I'd sure like my sodding blood," Faith said, dead set on ignoring Buffy and the bad feeling that was developing in her stomach because of the way Buffy had looked at her.

            Giles quickly walked passed the children and shut the door to the bathroom, hissing something under his breath at the shower's chained occupant.

            "What's in there?" Liam asked curiously, at the exact same time that Wesley voiced a similar question.

            "Spike," Giles told Wes.

            "Something dead and bad," Buffy told Liam.  "And British and annoying."

            "You say those two things like they go together," Cordy said, glancing from Wes to Giles, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

            Faith and Liam beamed wickedly at each other and made a beeline for the bathroom.  Something that was dead and bad and British.  It couldn't get much better than that. 

            "No," Wes barked, in his firm don't-argue-with-me voice.  Both children slid to an almost immediate stop.  They knew that tone.

            Giles looked at Wes, impressed.

            Faith and Liam turned to glare at Wes.

            "We wanna play with the dead thing," Faith said, batting her eyelashes.  Wes was a sucker for the eyelash trick.

            "No," all four of the adults in the room said at once. 

"Yes," Faith argued.

"No," Wes said in his final answer voice.

Faith leaned over and whispered something in Liam's ear, and the two of them walked over and sat down next to the wall, arms crossed over their chests and grumpy expressions on their faces.

            Buffy looked at them, confused and then turned attention back to Wes and Cordy.  "Okay, I give," she said finally.  "What are they doing?"

            "Brooding," Wes answered.  "They do that occasionally.  Liam's a natural."

            Buffy looked over, sure enough, a creepily familiar broody expression had settled over his baby features.

            "And the effects of the spell can't be undone for another twenty-one weeks?" Giles asked, breaking the silence that followed.

            In low tones, Wes explained the situation, stopping only when he heard distinctly gleeful whispering from the other side of the room, punctuated with giggles.

            "What are they doing now?" Buffy asked.

            "Now," Wes said smoothly, "they're plotting."

TBC… Faith and Liam's plan to play with the 'dead thing' in the bathroom and Spike's reaction to the kiddos, plus Buffy has to come to terms with her anger towards Faith, and Liam plays champion to his best friend.  Then some quality babysitting by Giles, Xander, Willow, and the rest of the gang, preschool, and all kinds of goodness.

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